The Masters is a very
friendly event meant for older men to have a get together and enjoy Sambo, age
are in groups of 5 years plus weights from 35 -39 and so until you reach 65
years and over , yes you do get men in their seventies entering. The competition
till 40 years is very similar to that of a full fledged International but age
starts to take its toll after that, with throws not so high and fast but still
very interesting to watch and most importantly still hotly contested.

The competition was run on a
Knockout with repechage but unlike the BSF model where everyone who loses before
the final gets chance to fight for Bronze in these events, here you only enter
the repechage if you lose to a finalist. Russell Dodds fought a very good fight
but I did think he scored the first 4pts if that had been the case he would have
had a different strategy he lost to Dovidavicius Lithuania. Paul Sawyer in his
last competition due to Knee problems was very unlucky not to get in the final
and win Gold with only three in his weight you would have thought they would
have a round robin NO Makatov Kazakhstan went straight through to the final on a
bye, this fellow had been beaten by Paul on previous occasions. Paul was to
fight Shvee Russia someone Paul had lost in the past, the Russian is World
famous for his arm locks as the match started he made a dummy attack to arm bar
Paul. He did not succeed then and at no other time throughout the match Shvee
eventually won on one attack in a very disputed result, the match is featured on
YouTube so let me know what you think?

Leigh Till performed better
to win Silver his first fight was against Bandzinas Lithuania in a very even
fought match with Leigh winning on a small point’s margin. He lost in the final
to the very experience Abasov Russia.

BSF President Martin Clarke
presented the medals.

On behalf
of the British Sombo Federation can I congratulate the Lithuanian Sambo
Federation for organising an excellent tournament, the hotel and food was of
excellent quality, the organisation was perfect and the Lithuanian people were
great. Once again well done, the only disappointing thing was that a lot of the
FIAS Council was not present to see such an event but one person you can
guarantee to be there was our FIAS President David Rudman. David realises how
important it is for the President to be present at such events.

FIAS has
come a long way under the leadership of David Rudman and Fernando Compte, in the
beginning when Fernando started FIAS in 1985 no one would have believed after
all the in fighting in the early days that we would have a one unified
International Sambo body with over 80 countries being affiliated, this I believe
is solely down to the work of those two great Samboists David Rudman and
Fernando Compte.

I look
forward to seeing you all at the forthcoming World championships in Greece